


Read between the lines.

by smallbump



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-27
Updated: 2015-07-27
Packaged: 2018-04-11 13:15:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4436837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smallbump/pseuds/smallbump
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times when Phil didn't say I love you back and the one time when he did.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Read between the lines.

 

**1\. “Sweet dreams”**

“Don’t forget socks,” he hears Phil half-shouting and Dan rolls his eyes where he stands by his dresser. Sometimes Phil really seems to think Dan is a five year old who doesn’t know what he needs for a weekend away. And yeah, maybe Dan is sometimes, last time he forgot socks and his toothbrush, but in his defence he’d been in a hurry then. And nervous.

Because he forgot to pack until fifty minutes before he was supposed to be on his train. Because he was too busy freaking out about the whole thing.

But that’s beside the point, really.

He presses down two pairs of socks into his backpack, and another t-shirt just in case. To sleep in maybe. He’s not sure if he’s going to need it but just in case. Dan is still a bit unsure about that whole thing. The last time he visited, he did sleep in a t-shirt but things are a bit different now, or maybe they aren’t. Honestly, he doesn’t know. Mostly wishes things are different. Hopeful thinking.

“Just a minute,” he calls out to Phil before heading to the bathroom for his toothbrush and other necessary things from there, like deodorant and perfume maybe. In the bathroom cupboard, he sees a spare toothbrush lying unopened.

“I bought it for you.”

In the mirror he meets his mother’s eyes and her smile, _her sweet, sweet motherly smile._

“Thanks,” he says, communicating with her reflection, and takes it to him along with the other things. He turns around and offers his mother a quick smile but she’s asking for more.

Standing in his way, her facial expression changes, looks concern, “How is it going with Phil?” she asks, tilting her head as if she thinks Phil is not treating him well. As if he’s someone Dan shouldn’t trust.

She couldn’t be more wrong. Though it’s fine, Phil is someone older he met on the Internet and she is his mother. It makes sense for her to worry, even if it is unnecessary.

“Great, really good. His- uh, parents are home this weekend, I think.”

“Oh, that’s good, that’s good,” she nods.

Dan knows where she’s going with this and he says it, even if it might not happen for a while, “Maybe he can come here some time, so you can meet him.”

Dan’s mom smiles and nods again, “That’d be lovely, Daniel,” her stroke on his arm makes him feel bad but the conversation ends there as she lets him pass and he goes back to his bedroom where he puts down the things in his backpack and finally he is done.

“Well that was a long minute.” He hears Phil’s voice coming from the Skype-window and he sits down crossed-legged on the bed, laptop in front of him.

Dan sighs but with a smile, “Mom wanted to talk.”

“Oh, tell her I said hi!” Dan nods. He’s probably not going to do that.

“We should go to bed. We’ll talk tomorrow,” Phil says and smiles differently. Like he just now realised Dan is coming to visit him again tomorrow. Dan thinks about how Phil uses we a lot even when they’re hundreds of miles apart and it’s quite cute. That they’re still a we like that even when separated.

“I can never sleep well the night before going to see you,”

Phil’s smile is sweeter now. Dan loves to count Phil’s smiles. This one is one of his favourites. But the best one is the one after they’ve kissed. Or maybe the one he had on when they first saw each other in person, the ‘ _I can’t contain myself’_ -smile, with the wide, shiny eyes and the out-stretched arms and the quick steps. Phil always smiles with his whole body.

“It’s only been two times so far,”

Dan fiddle with the sleeves on his hoodie, not looking at Phil anymore, “Yeah– well, I haven’t slept,” he mumbles.

“You seemed to be sleeping pretty well the next night though.”

Dan puts his chin in his hand and rests the elbow on his knee; a shy smile making its way through his lips. He blinks a few times because isn’t it obvious why he slept so well the next night? Yet Phil is sitting there, oblivious, clearly with a question mark over his head to why Dan seems to think this is amusing. “That’s because you’re there, silly.”

Because I’m in love with you, he wants to add. Because Phil makes him feel safe and calm and loved. Because Phil has one arm around his waist and his breathing against Dan’s hair, snoring a bit every now and then. Dan kind of hates to admit but he likes being held, he likes being touched and in someone’s arms.   
When he was little he slept in his parents’ bed until he was a bit too old for it, just because then he had someone close to him, he felt his mom’s arm or his dad’s knee against his back and sure, at times it was uncomfortable. But it was nice too.

Phil’s smile is a happier kind now; bottom lip disappearing under his upper and eyes go wide for a second.

Dan is convinced he’s going to tell Dan he loves him.

“I’ll meet you at the station, sweet dreams Dan.”

The screen turns black before he’s got any time to say goodnight as Phil ends their Skype call and Dan exhales, realising he’d been holding his breath.

 

 

 

**2\. “You’re beautiful.”**  

After being at a New Years Eve party for a while with some of Phil’s friends and other people none of them had any idea who they were, they headed to a park nearby to watch the fireworks and count in the New Year. They left alone, just the two of them, when other people were too busy and wouldn’t notice.

Hand in hand, they make their way through the crowd that’s gathered in the park, it’s a lot and it’s dark and cold. Dan pulls down the sleeve of his jacket over his hand, squeezes Phil’s hand with his other, like that will make it warmer.

“You cold?” Phil asks, his thumb rubbing over Dan’s skin, like that will make it warmer.

Dan nods, “A little,”

“It’s almost time,” Phil replies and puts his arm around Dan instead, Dan hugs Phil around his waist and they press their bodies together as much as possible to keep warm. The crowd is filling up; it’s only minutes until midnight. Dan looks up at Phil, smiles and is yet again reminded of how lucky he is to have found Phil. It’s hard with the distance between them to have the energy and strength to keep going, sometimes Dan genuinely wonders if it’s worth it but then, at times like now, when he’s standing in a big crowd with Phil’s arms around him, who is placing kisses on his forehead from time to time just because he can – then it’s worth it. It’s worth every awful daily goodbye over Skype, it’s worth the long train rides, and it’s worth all the waiting in the world.

If only for spending two short days together, it’s still two days. Two days of face-to-face conversations about the most abnormal things like how would a cow’s voice sound like if they could talk, or why eggs are the shape they are. It’s two days of laughing at the weirdest stuff online, together on a sofa instead of separate beds with separate computers in front of them. It’s two days of interrupting each other with a kiss _just because they can._

It’s still two days of a lot of different kisses. Two morning kisses and two goodnight kisses and a hell lot of other kisses in between. And it’s two days of being with a person so important, Dan forgets to text everyone back and misses all three calls from his mother.

Dan is looking at Phil, in that grey beanie and messy hair, the curious eyes and the parted, chapped lips, and Dan thinks he’s the prettiest boy in the world.

The countdown towards midnight begins. As it gets closer, more people join in the cheers. Dan keeps his eye on Phil, whispering the numbers – “Seven, six, five,” – and Phil is mouthing them back, constant smile on his lips even as they’re moving closer to each other, holding onto each other in the big crowd. “Two, one,”

“I love you,” he says against Phil’s mouth, unsure if he will hear him or not with the fireworks and people’s cheering around them but he says it anyway. He needs to have it said. If not for Phil, but for himself. He half-expects Phil to say it back this time, but reminds himself to not be disappointed if he doesn’t.  
Ever since he realised Phil doesn’t say I love you back, he’s become obsessed with it. And he hates it.

“You’re beautiful,” Phil responds just before kissing him, completely taking Dan to him, his tongue tracing over Dan’s teeth before he lets him inside and their mouths are mushed together, he’s breathing it in deeply and thinking about how if kisses could transform into words this one would read out ‘I love you’ and Dan decides that’s enough for tonight. He cannot ask for more right now.

The fireworks go off above them but neither of them lets go, not until it’s over, Dan can hear them fading and as Phil stop kissing him, he giggles instead. Dan kisses him quick and takes him into a tight hug, not wanting to ever let go. Dan is suddenly very aware he’s leaving tomorrow morning – again. Phil must’ve realised it too, or he simply wants to hug Dan tighter, as he wraps his arms around Dan too, kisses his forehead again and again, before whispering sweetly, “Happy new year, Dan,”

“Happy new year.” 

 

**3\. “It’s two sugars, right?”**

Dan wakes up in an empty bed, with two pillows above his head and a duvet crumbled up beside him. He proceeds to stretch out his long legs and arms, knuckles and knees cracking before he curls together again, taking the duvet to him and buries himself in it. It’s nice and warm and cosy. Dan blinks his eyes a few times, adjusting to the bright room.

The whole apartment actually. It’s been two days but Dan has already decided that Phil’s new one-room apartment is his favourite place to wake up in.

His gaze moves from the moving boxes on the floor, half-packed with things and clothes, over to the tiny kitchen and his eyes rest on Phil’s back, who is humming quietly while making what seems to be breakfast. Dan’s stomach growls at the thought.

When Phil turns around, they catch eyes and both smile and Dan wonders how many times he’s looked back at Dan, smiling at him sleeping. It makes him warm inside.

“Morning sleepyhead,” he hears from Phil says with a low voice.

As comfortable as the bed might be, Dan still gets up and moves over to the kitchen, places a kiss on his favourite spot – right below Phil’s earlobe – while he lets one hand run across his back and around the waist. Dan loves to stroke his hands over Phil’s body, press his fingertips against the bare skin and feel the warmth. He could stand like this for two hours easily; arms wrapped around Phil’s body, leaving small kisses all over his skin, sighing deeply into the crook of his neck and breathe in the scent of Phil’s shaving cream and shower gel.

“Don’t fall asleep on me,” Phil jokes, his hands placed on Dan’s forearms for a moment.

“Mmh, so nice, so soft.”

“You’re warm,” Phil says then in his husky, quiet morning voice.

Dan places another kiss on Phil’s cheek after his head bowed down a little bit; “Love you,” he mumbles, feeling the corner of Phil’s smile against his lips and it makes his heart feel heavy.

They’re quiet after that, their surroundings make enough sound. The traffic outside is as loud as always, the kettle boils like a hurricane where it stands on the counter. The toaster pushing up the two pieces of bread makes them remove themselves from each other’s embrace. Dan picks up their toast and Phil goes for the kettle.

“It’s two sugars, right?”

Dan nods, while putting jam on his toast. _It’s two sugars and you do love me, right?_

 

**4\. “I was just thinking about you.”**

Dan is at Uni when he receives Phil’s text. At a lecture, at the back of the class, with no motivation to actually listen to what the professor has to say. One of those days, they’re coming too often nowadays and he probably should try and fix that somehow but Dan has no motivation for that either.

From: Phil  
_I recently read that it takes one ounce of honey to fuel a bee’s flight around the world. Around the world Dan!_

It’s probably not a good thing that Dan can hear Phil’s voice in his head as he’s reading the text, saying the exact words even though he’s never done in real life. Or maybe he has, Phil sits on a lot of animal facts.

_(‘I have to do something when you’re not around_ ’ he had jokingly defended himself however Dan figured it wasn’t so much of a joke after all.)

To: Phil  
_Okay… Random but thanks for that Phil_

Dan is smiling, looking down at his phone, and shaking his head a little. He’s getting used to these kinds of texts by now but that doesn’t mean that they’re not all wonderfully amazing to receive. It makes his day just a tiny bit better.  
Whenever he’s feeling down and can’t talk to Phil on the phone or Skype, Dan likes to scroll through their text conversations over and over. Some he can even remember by heart and maybe it’s a bit pathetic and worrying but he can’t exactly stop.

From: Phil  
_I was just thinking about you_

From: Phil  
_I only need one ounce of you to fuel me to get through the day_

To: Phil  
_I’m in class dying of boredom and then you text me, ily_

Dan cringes at how insanely, disgustingly cute they’re being. Luckily his friend beside him is more focused on the lecture than Dan is and isn’t noticing the pink blush growing stronger on Dan’s cheeks or the big grin on his face that he tries to hide behind his hand. Dan pulls the sleeves down over his hands and buries his face in them after he opens Phil’s last text that only consists of five hearts.

 

**5\. “Can I kiss you?”**

“So, I’ve been doing some reading,” Phil begins his sentence as he walks over to the sofa with two cups of coffee in his hands. His hair is still damp from the shower; he still smells of shower gel and Dan suddenly feel so gross beside him.

“Mhm?” He doesn’t look up from the laptop, Phil begins a lot of his sentences like this and Dan is expecting another ten facts about elephants or something.

“Here,” He hears Phil says and when he looks up, there’s a coffee cup a few centimetres from his face. “Jesus Christ,” he breathes out in shock before taking it to him. 

Phil sits down in the sofa, the blanket loosely thrown over his legs and he takes a sip from his coffee. Dan’s back to reading on the laptop. They’re sitting in Phil’s sofa again, like they almost always do whenever Dan visits. He’s not asking for much for traveling all those hundreds of miles, all he really wants his Phil’s company, to be in Phil’s presence and to have Phil in his. He wants to fall asleep next to Phil, bodies close and with arms around each other and wake up next to him too, face buried in his chest or his nose close to Phil’s shoulder blades. And he wants them to have breakfast, lunch and dinner together. Kissing between taking bites. Whatever happens in between those meals is a bonus.

“I stumbled across this blog, about different sexualities and– Dan?”

“Mh? Blog, what?”

Phil’s tilting his head and frowns, he looks upset, “Please listen for a second?”

Dan closes the laptop and puts it away, shuffling in the sofa so he sits face to face with Phil, on hand on his knee, “I’m all ears.”

“Anyway, so I read about all these sexualities – there’s so many! – And I’ve always felt a bit weird with the whole feelings-stuff, I don’t know, you’ve probably noticed?“

Dan smiles fondly at his boyfriend, probably noticed? They’ve been together for nearly five months and friends for way longer, Phil has never say he loves Dan. Unless he reads between the lines, which Dan always does nowadays. But he keeps that to himself, the uncertain and scared look in Phil’s eyes says he doesn’t need to hear that right now.

“It’s fine,” he says instead, half-lying.

“Well, there’s something called demisexual, or demiromantic, it’s like, like you need to have a connection with a person before liking them, sort of?”

Dan thinks about it for a moment, and it sort of makes sense, that Phil could be that.

“Do you feel, uh, a connection with me?”

“I do, more and more for every day, I do, I promise,” The reassurance is making Dan feel bad. But he immediately regrets even thinking that, considering what Phil must’ve felt for so long.

Suddenly they feel so far away from each other, like all those hundreds of miles are between them right now, like his hand lying on Phil’s knee isn’t actually touching his knee but something else, something distant and Dan doesn’t know how to get closer. He wants to crawl onto Phil’s lap, drown himself into Phil’s embrace and never leave.

“What about when we kissed, or had sex? Did you, like, feel anything? Was I pressuring you?”

Dan thinks back at all those times, and all those kisses and how he sometimes didn’t know how to stop and he tries to remember what Phil looked like in the small light from the side of the window, behind the drawn curtains, and he tries to remember the feeling of his lips and the tongue inside his mouth, and Dan tries to remember how his hands felt over his skin, but all he can think now is him pushing and pressuring and not being careful enough, not observing enough of how Phil acted.

“No, no, no, not at all. You didn’t. It was fine, all of it. It’s been so much better lately though, I sometimes think about _being with you_ so much it drives me crazy. Maybe I’m only the demi-romantic kind, I don’t know, it’s weird. I’ve always felt a bit off with all this,”

Phil swallows hard, obviously unsure if he should go on, he looks Dan in the eyes and it makes Dan’s heart feel hard against his chest. He moves closer, the distance he felt earlier is slowly shrinking, it’s like he can feel Phil against his palm now, he squeezes his knee reassuringly, _Go on_ , he nods.

The smile on Phil’s face is both the sweetest and most heart-breaking thing Dan has ever witnessed. “But now you have a word for it?”

“I guess so,” he says, shrugs a little and it’s only now that Dan notices how glossy his eyes are – his ocean blue, loving eyes. “Can I kiss you?”

Dan’s laugh comes out before he can even try to stop it, but Phil only smiles so he lets it be and instead he leans closer, “Anytime,”

Phil captures Dan’s lips with his so sincerely, Dan feels butterflies in his stomach and his heart is light and lively. It feels like their first kiss all over again, and in a way it is. Their first kiss of understanding each other’s feelings in a whole new light. The smacking sound of their lips clashing together again and again is the only sound Dan wants to hear for the rest of the evening, he lets his body fall carefully against Phil and slowly, they’re shuffling down on the sofa, it doesn’t take long before they’re lying down. Dan pushes Phil’s fringe up, his fingers running through it a few times.

 

**6\. “I love you.”**

It’s the first night in their apartment. Dan’s parents left a few hours ago and ever since, they’ve been going around each other, stacking up things here and there. There are still a lot of boxes left but they’re in no rush to get the place done tonight.

Dan wouldn’t mind living in a bit of a mess if it meant living with Phil.

“Your parents are so nice,” Phil commented when they’re standing in the kitchen a while later, as he’s watching Dan cut the pizza in slices. His mother gave them money to buy a pizza, because that’s what you do when you move into a new place – eat pizza on the floor and wonder how the hell you’re going to get this mess out of the way.

Dan scoffs, they’re alright. He’s glad they helped them move though, and he’s glad he got to show them the place and hug them goodbye one last time. A hug he’s going to remember for a long time.  
  
“Or are you saying that because they bought us all that food? You didn’t have to thank them hundred times, Phil,” He says, not looking at Phil’s direction, he already knows he’s got his embarrassed-but-offended-look on his face.

“It was a lot of food!”

“She’s my mom,” Dan states, and hopefully it’ll end that conversation because that explains everything, doesn’t it?

Phil opens a few cupboard doors – and doesn’t close a single one – before he remembers all of their plates aren’t unpacked yet and Dan rolls his eyes, “Let’s just eat from the pizza box,” and they sit down on the kitchen floor, with the box in Dan’s lap and in quiet conversation they eat the delicious pizza and wonder how the hell they’re going to do this.

Once they’re finished, Dan pushes the pizza box from them as far as he can, Phil is sitting with his legs out-stretched and Dan somewhat straddles him, sitting between his legs and wraps his around Phil’s waist. “Can you believe we live together now?” He says excitedly, not too bothered with the fact that he might sound like a seven year old, if Phil wants to laugh at him for it – let him.

But of course he doesn’t. “I barely can,” he says instead, puts his arms around Dan and as their foreheads touch, Phil kisses him, for the millionth time since they woke up this morning.

As soon as there was an opportunity for him to kiss Dan, he took it. They’d snuck away in the grocery store and between isles filled with toilet paper and cat food, they shared a few kisses like horny teenagers with their first partner, not being able to keep their hands off of each other.

And after every kiss, Dan was left wanting another one.

“I can kiss you every single day now,” He says and kisses Phil again, as a demonstration, “And I can tell you I love you in person every single day,”

He kisses Phil again, just because, “I love you,” Another kiss. And another.

Phil’s giggle makes his heart jump when he pulls away, his grin is sow hide it hurts his cheeks a little but it’s fine. “Love you too,” Phil says, the giggles continues as he does and buries his face in the crook of Dan’s neck, acting like this happens all the time.

He says it so casually, like he’s been saying it for years, several times when he has not. Not in those words, not this loud, not with so much confident.

There are goose bumps all over Dan’s arms and his back; his cheeks feel warm against Phil’s hair. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” His eyes light up when he straightens his back and looks at Dan, cheeks are blushed and the smile his wearing is so _real._ It’s sort of an I-did-it-smile and if Dan’s heart wasn’t about to jump out of his chest before, it’s about to now. “I’ve never been so sure about anything.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! 
> 
> mostly just wanted to say that i hope people were okay with my idea of demi!phil. i'll be honest and say i'm not too educated on the topic but i did my best and i hope you liked it and that it was okay :) 
> 
> (also i don't keep track on when dan and phil met up, moved where and when so this probably doesn't add up to real life but just deal with it, ok? thanks)


End file.
